GPU vs. CPU Video Encoding -- Is RTX NVENC or X264 BETTER?

This whole video aged like a fine milk
Conclusion:
If you have Core i7 10700K or newer, you can simply use X265 on CPU instead of H265 on GPU.

Because most video games are still optimized to run on 8 Threads. While x265 8 Threads on CPU can do 1440p 60 FPS without even struggling. Which means if you have any 8 Cores 16 Threads CPU, you better use X265 CPU Encoding instead of H265 or H264 GPU encoding.

this video is really misleading =)

What about vs lossless video? Seems all these are tossing out information, showing video at 30fps or 60fps is not that hard. its just flipping through frames like a deck of cards.

What is the root reason to even need to toss out this information in a video?

very informative video, great job

Instructions unclear. Bought a 3070 Ti on launch day and built a fireplace.

Maybe there was something wrong with my Ryzen 7 2700x CPU when I used x264 for streaming because it would always lag and drop frames while playing a game for me live, so I always stuck with NVENC even when using my 1070 GPU. Now I have a 3070 Ti I'm going to see if the performance and stream quality is better while running it.

The fact that Twitch still has a 6 Mbps maximum is crazy... that's less than 1 MB/s... especially since for me, my ISP turns out an 10-11Mbps upload speed which is about 1.3 MB/s upload speed.

are you using a celeron to encode my 3600 looks wayyyyyyyy better than that hot garbage. lmao

I want to see what real-time AV1 will look like, what I have seen so far, is far better than even H.265 and better than VP9. Especially, when both H.264 and H.265 on my GTX 1060 6GB look horrible, even at SD with high bitrate, so no question here and I will be better of with CPU-based libx264 and libx265 my FFMPEG library has, even though the encoding time is significantly slower. I will take quality over speed.

Just mentioning that gtx 16 series cards have the turing encoder as well. I just picked up a 1650 super for $180 shipped from newegg and put it in a gen 4 i5 machine for a dedicated streaming pc.

Impressive way to describe complicated questions. Very easy to understand thnks alot👍

They don't allow .265 for streaming? It's better quality for equal bitrate right?

i have 30% of gpu encode at the desktop, is it normal?

Is NVENC in this video encoding h265 or h264?

Is he using medium/slow encoding? Im sure mediums looks better and more in the future with x265 because I test it myself but dame the CPU power required make you wanna quit your game over the loss on frames and imput-lag, unless you have a very good CPU to handle it. H265 is what everyone is gonna use someday, GPU most definitely if possible but might be H265 CPU only for a start.

Nice video, thorough, simple and clear explanation. I was just watching a pc build video and he was talking about gpu encoding, had no idea what it was but this video really is easy to understand even for a complete outsider. Thanks!

I was hoping to see video encoding with Nvenc on BRD movies. It's interesting that streaming quality is the focus here. Heck, I couldn't imagine spending this kind of money for streaming quality. I guess you guys must be making a lot of money streaming as a business. Cool.

The best part of the newest Nvidia encoder is that you get get both great quality and fast encoding speed. I like to record my games in lossless and then re-encode them for distribution.

No one playing that trash play a real game

CPU streaming works well if you have a high core/thread count.

@venturebeat what is your prefer for low bitrate ? Nvenc or x264 which is best ?

I'm still finding that x264 is the better option - in my case due to bottle-necking with a eGPU mostly (Dell XPS w/ i7 maxed out + Razer Core + GTX 970, but even on my desktop PC it's a similar situation. GPU encoding is heading in the right direction - but games in general utilize CPU's to a bare minimum (at least most games) so offloading to the CPU seems right.

Great comparison by the way!

I use 5000-6000 bitrate for 720p 60fps and it looks very good. i use new nvenc encoders, with look ahead and psycho turned on as well as 2 b frames. I am testing how it looks and performs with 1 b frame too.

was this on a gaming/encoding pc or was it two separate setups

Wonderful dissection of the differences.

Great Vid, thanks for the info

nvenc twitch looks much better than x264 faceook

Watching this video from iphone 6 👏🏼😂

GPU rendering is extremely fast but produces lots of artifacts. Its terrible for high quality recording.

well I tried the new nvidia nvenc (new) sooo it is indeed really good but while using this as the encoder for streaming + in vr will makes things really laggy so I will stick to the x264 (fast)

I have a rtx 2060 and a i5 4670 one pc setup...Think my best bet is to going with new nvenc @ either 720p30fps 3000/b or 720p60fps 6000 bitrate...However, been having issues with my webcam c922 pixelating randomly....been trying to figure out how to fix this.

So I have a 2080 Super & i9 9900k - Which would video encoding for streaming would you choose. PS: 6k bitrate

RECORD IN 25MBPS aka 25000kbps. There you go.

Would it be better to buy 2 10 series cards ?(using 1 for gaming and another for encoding) or just buy 1 RTX card?

Best rocket league player

I just tried the beta version of the new NVENC with my 1080 ti and boy was i NOT disappointed, it looked like i was streaming with x264 fast preset without the performance hit/high temps and around 50% GPU utilization no pixalization or artifacting in my stream!, im really impressed even with the pascal but it will be even better with an RTX card.

Whats the profile of x264? Its like comparing x265 720 vs x264 1080 XD

N-VENC I think its NV-Enc.

I'm a bit late. But what do you guys think is best to use to stream with? AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3.8GHz 8 Core 16 Threads or a MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Duke OC?

Nice information, great video! Thank you for this.

I got my 2070 for less then what i would've paid for a new 1080 and get better performance as well as the upgraded nvenc encoding. I think it was worth it. I sold my 1070 and 980ti when gpus where overpriced and was using a 1060 until recently.

I don't find hardware encoder in my obs settings..it has only software x264..I have amd r7 200 1gb ddr5 gfx card though...plz help

great video! definitely helpful :)

x264 very slow preset??? I VERY HOPE SOO answer would be appreciated, please. If not on very slow preset make another video comparing very slow x264 1080p 60fps 6000 br vs new nvec please..

I'd be interested in seeing a comparison between x264 with a encoder preset of Fast or medium against the new NVENC both at 3500mbps. Nice to see that Nvidia is improving their hardware encoding nevertheless.

It would be better to do a Turing vs x264 fast/medium. Veryfast is a no go quality wise, just stick with nvenc even on older cards.
To be honest most serious streamers are considering a secondary pc when they use x264. Performance hit is very high when using fast/medium. If Turing can deliver at least x264 fast quality it will be a game changer for streamers.